If you saw the trailer for Dear White People, you’re hopefully excited for what looks like an amazing mockery of Tyler Perry, The Help, The Blind Side, and every other lazy Hollywood attempt at celebrating (themselves for not being obviously afraid of) black people. This new PSA from the makers of Dear White People makes fun of the common phrase, “not be to be racist, but…” which is actually the way that most internet comments start.

When you start a sentence with, “Not to be racist, but…” well, you probably shouldn’t have started that sentence. But if you did, here’s how to finish: “Not to be racist, but, you make some great points, Black Person! I’ll be on my way—oh, and thank you for Michael Jackson.”

End of discussion, really. What a solid marketing strategy. Stroking progressive boners, feeding racist trolls. I can’t wait for the future PSAs:

Well, I Don’t See ColorI Have a Black FriendIt’s Not Racist If It’s TrueI Didn’t Mean All Black PeopleIt’s Just a JokeThey Have the Same Opportunities but No Work EthicReverse Racism! and The Civil War Was About Taxes

I don’t know if this is the right place for this but the most racist person I ever met was an old Korean convenience store owner from my home town. He didn’t even try to hide it. When ever a black person was in there at the same time as me he’d be ranting under his breath about how he wished they would leave. He was was very fond of the term Jungle Bunny which while I know its a horrible thing to call a person, hearing it in a thick Korean accent is severely chuckle inducing.

The most racist person I’ve ever met was a Cuban grandmother of a chick I was dating. My first conversation with her went pretty much like the one Tony Soprano had with Noah, except in Spanish, and instead of pushing me out of the house like nothing happened when her granddaughter came in she finished up with “… at least he’s not Puerto Rican.”

Abuelita’s English accent was thicker than Papi LeBatard’s but she would rail constantly against Mexicans taking all the jobs.

I occasionally like to say that right before saying something that sounds horribly racist about a fictional race of people completely out of context of anything. For instance, “Not to be racist but klingons are all a bunch of murderous monsters.”

All the “white people be all like this, but black people be all like this” or “fellas be all like this, but women be shopping” type movies and TV shows always suck, almost without exception. The reason for this is simple. In each of these categories there are only 2 or 3 legitimately funny jokes, and everybody has heard these jokes already. Even if you manage to creatively dress these jokes up to make them seem fresh, that still leaves you with an hour and twenty minutes or 12 episodes of more material you need to fill.

Seen the film and it is awesome, one of the funniest I’ve seen in years, deserves to be a classic. It works on a baseline level as a well constructed and well executed, extremely likable comedy. And also from a social perspective, it goes a long way from perpetuating racial stereotypes — it unpacks them, lays them bare and allows you to laugh instead of cringe. So anyone inclined to jump to the false equivalence, “reverse racism” argument, as a knee jerk reaction — pump the brakes, breath slowly into a paper sack and then count backwards from 100. This film is smarter and funnier than you are anticipating. And waaaaaay more enlightened about race than the internet dipshits jumping all over it, never having seen anything other than a trailer and a viral teaser (not that their views would be enlightened otherwise).

And Justin Simien, the up and coming black writer/director of DWP, takes the hacky Tyler Perry films shamelessly aimed at black audiences as much to task as anything else he is mining from our culture, and that is what the film is all about — a mirror to our culture, made light, from a knowing but underserved perspective — the young black man. He is an important new comedic voice, and as much as he is trolling the trolls with this stuff, and it will certainly make its own gravy online, where racism rages on in brain dead anonymity, I still cannot believe how much “this is racist against white people” crap I have been seeing surrounding the early hype of the film. It is so ugly and dumb. (The imbd comments alone will make you retarded.)

Lastly, this is a wildly independent, micro-budget film, made far away from the studio system. It had trouble finding a distributor brave enough to take on something this racially charged (the studios are cowards, one and all), so the fact that it appears to be getting a reasonable release and lots of buzz is something to be celebrated, unless one would prefer nothing fresh or original ever to make it to a multi-plex.

Kind of proud to have gotten Underball’s conspiracy juices flowing, but alas not a shill for the film or whomever is distributing it (happy it is whomever, didn’t look it up).

And, AB, yeah, not funny at all. SO guilty as charged there.

I am a filmmaker, however, and attend the Sundance Film Fest every year for the last 16 years. And myriad of other festivals throughout the year, wherever my company’s films may take us. SO I see tons of Indie stuff that never gets released, and some really terrific films many months, sometimes years, before they are released theatrically.

Some are even made by friends of mine, although not the case with Dear White People (although I did get to meet the director and was very impressed). And was happy to discover I was sitting next to producer Effie T. Brown during the screening, randomly, who was forced to hear me howling with laughter throughout.

IN any event, I sometimes come on here, as a fan of FilmDrunk since day one and long time admirer of Vince, to rant and rave about some of these films.

For example, the original Raid film, the unrated festival cut, was one particular mind blower… But every year a few stand out.

This past Sundance I really enjoyed David Wain’s They Came Together and, as noted, Dear White People, as I love comedy films and there are the rare few really good ones. This past fest was generous in that it had two truly awesome comedies.

And for a tiny underdog of a film that was flat out amazing, “A Girl Walks Home at Night”, a black and white, Iranian, female vampire movie was the big discovery for me. Also impressed after meeting the director, Ana Lily Amirpour, and also didn’t know anyone involved with the film, aside from her lawyer.

Anyway… You don’t care, and were just trying to stir the pot, but I have no hand in viral marketing for anyone, nor do I work for any distributor or PR company or any of that industry bullshit. Just make movies, and truly love others who do the same.